Skip to content
Tech Vs Humans
  • Mission
  • Blog
  • About Us
  • The Music List
  • The Reading List
  • Search Icon

Tech Vs Humans

A Digital Transformation Playspace

Beware of Zed – Detractor Extraordinaire

Beware of Zed – Detractor Extraordinaire

December 22, 2022

In the book, Play Bigger by Al Ramadan et al., a lot can be learned about the Organizational risks and benefits of creating a new category. A new category is a new market space like Amazon with online shopping, Salesforce with CRM cloud software, and IKEA with furniture.

I maintain that many of the risks identified don’t just apply to Category Creation but also Digital Transformation. Both require a massive leap of faith. Category Creation is about Changing or defining the External perception – clearly articulating “What’s different?” to the marketplace, while Digital Transformation is about changing or defining the internal perception – convincing yourselves of the change. For example, Salesforce had no guarantees when it created the SAAS delivery method for CRM. And there won’t be any guarantees when an organization takes on a Digital Transformation effort. 

When taking on either, there is plenty to learn from the field of Change Management. This recent article by SmartTribes Institute is a must-read if you want to understand the layers involved in Digital Transformation. In addition, Simon Sinek often references another mainstay in Change Management called the Law of Diffusion. The law of Diffusion, discussed in this previous post, states that 84% of your end users will resist change to some degree. 

What’s a Zed?

That leads us back to a persona that Al Ramadan calls Zed. Zed is a person that actively resists change. They may be aggressive, completely transparent, or calculated and subtle but just as against the change. This person will actively work to sabotage your attempts to lead change. And the only way to deal with a Zed, at least in my experience, is to have the courage to remove that person from the Organization. 

Note: The name Zed is not actually what Al Ramadan and the team call this persona. It is, however, the name they reference in their book. 

References and Resources

Play Bigger – How to be a Category King

Supporting Music

Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine

Lullaby by The Cure

Eat the Music by Kate Bush

Originally Posted December 3, 2018

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related


Change Management, User Personas

Post navigation

PREVIOUS
The Bottle Episode vs The Skunkworks Project
NEXT
If You Give an Exec an Eclair

One thought on “Beware of Zed – Detractor Extraordinaire”

  1. Pingback: Not a Futurist - Tech Vs Humans

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Career Growth
  • Change Management
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Digital Transformation
  • Guiding Principles
  • Humor
  • Implementation Best Practices
  • Implementation Parables
  • Implementation Vocabulary
  • Leadership
  • Personal Growth
  • User Adoption
  • User Personas
  • Work Management
  • Work/Life Balance

Previous Posts

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • September 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
© 2023   All Rights Reserved.